From owner-freebsd-ports Fri Dec 20 5:48:58 2002 Delivered-To: freebsd-ports@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id A780237B401; Fri, 20 Dec 2002 05:48:56 -0800 (PST) Received: from topaz.mdcc.cx (topaz.mdcc.cx [212.204.230.141]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 2BA0C43EEC; Fri, 20 Dec 2002 05:48:56 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from edwin@mavetju.org) Received: from k7.mavetju (topaz.mdcc.cx [212.204.230.141]) by topaz.mdcc.cx (Postfix) with ESMTP id BA7262B68A; Fri, 20 Dec 2002 14:48:53 +0100 (CET) Received: by k7.mavetju (Postfix, from userid 1001) id 75BC36A712B; Sat, 21 Dec 2002 00:48:50 +1100 (EST) Date: Sat, 21 Dec 2002 00:48:50 +1100 From: Edwin Groothuis To: Maxim Sobolev Cc: Akinori MUSHA , portmgr@FreeBSD.ORG, ports@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Thoughts about ports freeze Message-ID: <20021220134850.GY50581@k7.mavetju> References: <20021220001529.GC9963@vega.vega.com> <86lm2ls3ei.wl@archon.local.idaemons.org> <20021220131339.GB11573@vega.vega.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <20021220131339.GB11573@vega.vega.com> User-Agent: Mutt/1.4i Sender: owner-freebsd-ports@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.org On Fri, Dec 20, 2002 at 03:13:39PM +0200, Maxim Sobolev wrote: > Well, all this is fine, but doesn't answer one of my main points: why > do we shift responsibility for our inability to encourage fellow developers > to pay attention to CURRENT not only to stable to our end users? And I > doubt that such tactic will bring anything but users' dissatisfaction, > because even a year-long freeze will not help to encourage reluctant > developer, who doesn't have 5.0 and therefore doesn't care about it, > to fix something. The only things that can push him into doing it > are (a) if he will use 5.0 on day-to-day basis or (b) he will be > flooded with problem reports from angry users running 5.0. The current > freeze won't lead to neither (a), nor (b), instead it (from my own > experience) leads to: (c) user makes a conclusion that FreeBSD > release-engineering process sucks. Chicken and egg problem. Ports for 5.x don't get fixed until 5.0 gets out and comes into the hands of a bigger group of people. For example, until a week ago I didn't have access (well, not strictly true) access to a 5.0 machine. And now I have it only because there is one in the FreeBSD serverfarm. For me the ban can be lifted. I've gone through the list of problems and done all I can. The ones I couldn't do are just too weird for me (or I gave up after an hour looking at it). Please don't expect me to fix problems in the code of others due to thighter rules that the C compiler uses. If it isn't something obvious which can be fixed in ten minutes, it's too complicated and the maintainer / original author should have a look at it(*). Right now I'm going 1443 and rising (well, actually 790 if you only take the un-assigned ones) (*) Note that I don't mind spending time with the author about it. Edwin -- Edwin Groothuis | Personal website: http://www.mavetju.org edwin@mavetju.org | Weblog: http://www.mavetju.org/weblog/weblog.php To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-ports" in the body of the message